1. [common] A notional unit of computing power combining instruction
speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second
times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. “That
machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!”
This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a
fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See
bitty box,
Get a real computer!, toy,
crank.

2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity of
computation or information, in much the same way that an electron bears one
unit of electric charge (see also bogon). An
elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has been developed based
on the physical fact that the molecules in a solid object move more rapidly
as it is heated. It is argued that an object melts because the molecules
have lost their information about where they are supposed to be (that is,
they have emitted computrons). This explains why computers get so hot and
require air conditioning; they use up computrons. Conversely, it should be
possible to cool down an object by placing it in the path of a computron
beam. It is believed that this may also explain why machines that work at
the factory fail in the computer room: the computrons there have been all
used up by the other hardware. (The popularity of this theory probably
owes something to the Warlock stories by Larry
Niven, the best known being What Good is a Glass
Dagger?, in which magic is fueled by an exhaustible natural
resource called mana.)